fiery-throated hummingbird

Panterpe insignis

A Fiery-throated Hummingbird perches among orange blossoms in the Costa Rican highlands, its emerald and sapphire plumage catching the light like jeweled scales. The photograph’s dramatic black backdrop and crisp, close-focus style isolate the bird’s iridescent feathers and the flame-tipped flowers, highlighting their luminous colors in a vivid, painterly composition.

Costa Rica

  • "In the world of hummingbirds, yesterday's nectar is irrelevant—there is only this flower, this moment, this sip of sweetness."

    — Barry Lopez

  • "The Jeweled Guardian: Why This Glittering Hummingbird Needs Our Cloud Forests"

    This Fiery-throated hummingbird just paused between feeding visits to these vibrant crocosmia blooms in Costa Rica's misty highlands – and its presence here represents one of nature's most specialized relationships. These living jewels are found only in the cloud forests of Costa Rica and western Panama, making them one of Central America's most geographically restricted hummingbirds.

    What makes this bird special? Fiery-throated hummingbirds are high-altitude specialists, thriving in the cool, moist conditions above 1,200 meters where perpetual mist nourishes an incredible diversity of flowering plants. Their iridescent throat patch – which flashes brilliant orange, red, and gold depending on the light – gives them their name. This individual likely defends a territory rich in epiphytic plants like bromeliads and orchids, visiting hundreds of flowers daily in a precisely timed circuit.

    The conservation challenge: These birds face mounting pressure from climate change, which is shifting cloud forest conditions upward and reducing available habitat. Coffee farming expansion, cattle grazing, and development are fragmenting their forest corridors. As temperatures rise, the critical cloud layer that sustains their ecosystem moves to higher elevations, leaving lower cloud forests too dry to support the diverse flowering plants these hummingbirds depend on.

    How you can help: • Support shade-grown, bird-friendly coffee certification programs • Choose eco-lodges that contribute to local conservation when visiting Costa Rica • Donate to organizations protecting Central American cloud forests • Plant native flowering plants that support local hummingbird species in your area • Reduce your carbon footprint to help slow climate change impacts

    When we protect the mystical cloud forests that Fiery-throated hummingbirds call home, we're preserving irreplaceable ecosystems that harbor countless endemic species found nowhere else on Earth. This glittering guardian reminds us that some of nature's most spectacular creatures exist in the world's most fragile places.

  • 1/1250 sec at f/4.0

    640 mm

    ISO 3200

    Sony DSC-RX10M4

    24-600mm F2.4-4.0